Obama Speech on Departure of Hosni

The president delivered the predictable remarks after Hosni Mubarak's resignation was announced Friday.

By stepping down, President Mubarak responded to the Egyptian people’s hunger for change.

But this is not the end of Egypt’s transition. It’s a beginning. I’m sure there will be difficult days ahead, and many questions remain unanswered.

The military has served patriotically and responsibly as a caretaker to the state and will now have to ensure a transition that is credible in the eyes of the Egyptian people. That means protecting the rights of Egypt’s citizens, lifting the emergency law, revising the constitution and other laws to make this change irreversible, and laying out a clear path to elections that are fair and free.

As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana while trying to perfect his own, “There’s something in the soul that cries out for freedom.”

Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square. And the entire world has taken note.